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Physical Review A

Diffusion-free image storage in hot atomic vapor

Young‐Wook Cho, Joo-Eon Oh, Yoon Ho Kim

Published Jul 30, 2012• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The ability to directly store optical images in atomic vapor has many potential applications, but the diffusion of atoms severely limits the image resolution and storage duration. In this paper, we report an experimental demonstration on diffusion-free storage of optical images in hot atomic vapor. By encoding two-dimensional images in incoherent light and making use of the correlation imaging technique, we overcome the effect of atomic diffusion on the all-optical image storage in atomic vapor.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.86.013844

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The ability to directly store optical images in atomic vapor has many potential applications, but the diffusion of atoms severely limits the image resolution and storage duration. In this paper, we report an experimental demonstration on diffusion-free storage of optical images in hot atomic vapor. By encoding two-dimensional images in incoherent light and making use of the correlation imaging technique, we overcome the effect of atomic diffusion on the all-optical image storage in atomic vapor.
Reversible and coherent storage of light in an atomic medium is a promising method with possible applications in many fields. In this work, arbitrary two-dimensional images are slowed and stored in warm atomic vapor for up to 30 micros, utilizing electromagnetically induced transparency. Both the intensity and the phase patterns of the optical field are maintained. The main limitation on the storage resolution and duration is found to be the diffusion of atoms. A technique analogous to phase-shift lithography is employed to diminish the effect of diffusion on the visibility of the reconstructed image.
We theoretically investigate image storage in hot atomic vapor. A so-called 4f4f4f system is adopted for imaging and an atomic vapor cell is placed over the transform plane. The Fraunhofer diffraction pattern of an object in the object plane can thus be transformed into atomic Raman coherence according to the idea of ``light storage.'' We investigate how the stored diffraction pattern evolves under diffusion and discuss the essence of the stability of its dark spots. Our result indicates, under appropriate conditions, that an image can be reconstructed with high fidelity. The main reason for this procedure is the fact that diffusion of opposite-phase components of the diffraction pattern interferes destructively.
We study the storage and retrieval of images in a hot atomic vapor using the gradient echo memory protocol. We demonstrate that this technique allows for the storage of multiple spatial modes. We study both spatial and temporal multiplexing by storing a sequence of two different images in the atomic vapor. The effect of atomic diffusion on the spatial resolution is discussed and characterized experimentally. For short storage time a normalized spatial cross-correlation between a retrieved image and its input of 88 % is reported.
Ghost imaging is an imaging technique in which the image of an object is revealed only in the correlation measurement between two beams of light, whereas the individual measurements contain no imaging information. Here, we experimentally demonstrate storage and retrieval of ghost images in hot atomic rubidium vapor. Since ghost imaging requires (quantum or classical) multimode spatial correlation between two beams of light, our experiment shows that the spatially multimode correlation, a second-order correlation property of light, can indeed be preserved during the storage-retrieval process. Our work, thus, opens up new possibilities for quantum and classical two-photon imaging, all-optical image processing, and quantum communication.